I believe this conversation has strayed quite a bit from GNU Radio
itself. Whatever you believe about licensing, IP, versions of the GPL,
etc., the fact is that for better or for worse, GNU Radio is licensed
under GPLv3. The only way that will change is if FSF releases a GPLv4.
It is something which is up to the FSF.
The conversation about ways to bring more people into the community are
very useful. I truly believe that GRC takes away 95% of the need for
the user to actually code in either Python or C++. To me, the real
question is how to get that last 5%.
As for Windows support, Josh has been working on making Windows
installers for GNU Radio. Nearly all of the main components are in
there. With this, a Windows user never even needs to compile anything
or worry about dependencies. See:
http://www.joshknows.com/gnuradio_port#binary_packages
Matt